New York, N.Y. (February 12, 2014) — Hundreds of student entrepreneurs from across New York City and Long Island will pitch their ideas to “angel investor” judges next month as New York Institute of Technology hosts a regional round of the 2014 New York State Business Plan Competition.

The competition will be held at NYIT Auditorium on Broadway on March 28. Winners from six categories will move into the statewide finals on April 25 in Albany, with hundreds of thousands in prize money at stake.

Students pitch their business plans to panels of investors and industry experts who judge the plans on “technical feasibility and scalability,” according to the competition’s website. Categories include: Biotechnology/Healthcare, Energy/Sustainability, Information Technology/Software, Nanotechnology/Advanced Technology, Products/Services, and Social Entrepreneurship/Non-Profit.

The engineering students have designed innovative products in their Entrepreneurship Path Senior Design Project course, part of a pilot program funded by a National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance grant. The goal of the program is to help engineering students become “industry ready” and aware of the need to manage their inventions and innovations in the marketplace. The NYIT program encourages interdisciplinary collaboration between the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences and the School of Management.

About NYIT

New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) offers 90 degree programs, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees, in more than 50 fields of study, including architecture and design; arts and sciences; education; engineering and computing sciences; health professions; management; and osteopathic medicine. A non-profit independent, private institution of higher education, NYIT has 13,000 students attending campuses on Long Island and Manhattan, online, and at its global campuses. NYIT sponsors 11 NCAA Division II programs and one Division I team.

Led by President Edward Guiliano, NYIT is guided by its mission to provide career-oriented professional education, offer access to opportunity to all qualified students, and support applications-oriented research that benefits the larger world. To date, more than 95,000 graduates have received degrees from NYIT. For more information, visit nyit.edu.